I want to roast & sell from home - why not?

This is a discussion on I want to roast & sell from home - why not? within the Coffee Roasters forums, part of the Coffee Industry category; .... Amen to that brother.
Wishin' you the best with it from New England.......

It would be wise to draw one up, even if you’re not applying for a small business loan. It organizes your thoughts onto paper (or computer disk) and keeps you focused and on track.

There are a number of websites on writing a business plan. I found this one that categorized and briefly outlined the why’s.

Copied from http://www.nolo.com , a website that apparently offers legal documentation and other miscellaneous legal assistance:

Reasons to Create a Business Plan

Writing a well-thought-out and organized business plan dramatically increases your odds of succeeding as an entrepreneur. The benefits of a business plan include:

• determining whether your business has a chance of making a good profit
• providing an estimate of your start-up costs, and how much you'll need to invest or finance
• convincing investors and lenders to fund your business
• providing a revenue estimate (by defining your market -- who your customers will be -- and the percentage of the market you can expect to reach)
• helping your business make money from the start by devising an effective marketing strategy
• helping you compete in the marketplace (through an analysis of what your competition lacks), and
• anticipating potential problems so you can solve them before they become disasters.

I guess a point I didn't clearly make in my original post on this topic was that one of the reasons we were taking so long was that we were trying to write our business plan and get it right - not just making it work - but getting the real numbers. 6 versions of it. Each time we got to where we thought we were going to be able to wrap it up, we learned something new that casued us to have to make adjustments. Each time it seemed to really change the outcome of the idea and cause us set backs. Of course one of the main things I learned from a siminar at Coffee Fest in DC this year was about "under captialization". In writing this plan we could see that very fast. We were under capitalized. So...

Then we figured we would turn to the SBA for help. Basically they told us the same thing. Oh - in one of their workshops the guy acutally said at the start of his spill was that he hoped no one was there hoping to open another coffee shop - that this area did not need another coffee shop - so right off the bat I new we were not going to get the attention and help we needed from them - perhaps I did though - our mentor basically said, in his experiance, we needed to have 5 times the capital of what I needed to renovate and get the doors open. He was probably right and we did not - open that is. Probably saved me my home.

That is what brought us to roasting at home and starting small - very small - learning more about cupping, roasting, relationships, and business.

Should I write another plan - Probably - but now I don't really know how far we really want to go beyond the pure joy of roasting your own and drinking REALLY GOOD COFFEE.

To roast for income, or not to roast for income - that is the question.

Something Different

I started a small roasting business a little over a year ago. I am emphasize the fact that I am roasting in small batches and the freshness (all my coffee is in the hands of my customers within 2 days of roasting). I also encourage my customers to only buy as much coffee as they need for a week or two. This would make shipping prohibitive, so I have opted for selling through open-air markets (farmers, artisan) around town. That keeps my overhead low and allows me to have multiple locations. It also allows me to sell brewed coffee, which adds substantially to my bottom line. Brewed coffee has a higher profit margin and hits a much wider market than beans alone. Cold-brewed ice coffee is a really big seller right now.

Something different

musichound

thanks for the good ideas. as i said, i want to keep it small, manageble and profitable. What you did sounds like what I have in my head. Did you write a plan? What are the requirements for selling in the open air market? codes?? health department? how is it regulated?

How are you serving brewed coffee at open air markets? How are you brewing? How are you keeping things clean? What is allowed by your health department there? Either you are a retialer or a food service vendor here. If roasting at home and selling you have to have a permit that says you are a manufacturer. You have to be inspected by the state and local inspectors...3 sinks, painted slick easy to clean walls, clean storage area off the floor, easy (reasonable) access to washing hands and bathrooms - all seperate from your living space - literally by a wall.

FYI - I bought a very nice YM-2 up in WI this weekend. Next day I was up and roasting greens!!! If is great fun and I'm learning fast that I need to know more about profiles and about time and temps with this machine.

Anyone out there have some logs they can share on private message or other???